HappyJoy
Platinum Member
- Apr 15, 2015
- 32,056
- 5,943
- 1,140
- Banned
- #321
Not hire Al Sharpton as a "race adviser" Today Obama blamed Slavery and Jim Crow for riots? WTF?What should he have done differently?
I think today's racial issues have a basis in slavery and Jim Crow as well as many other aspects of our past. Do we not have a representative democracy today because we struggled under another government? The past helps craft our future, it's a part of us.
You have people (way more than healthy) on this board who day after day go on these racial tears. The victimized whites. I tell ya', if you can't make it in America because you are white, you really suck at life.
Oh, you "think" that, do you? WHY do you think that? Just because it sounds good? Have you any definitive proof linking today's racial problems directly back to slavery and Jim Crow?
Sure.Slavery and Jim Crow laws have led to Institutionalized racism. Here are some examples:
The Case Against Racial Profiling
Being followed in stores by employees to abuse of stop and frisk laws.
The subject of racial profiling never leaves the news. That's because racial profiling may factor into how authorities target those suspected of various crimes, including terrorism, illegal immigration or drug running. But should any member of a racial group be profiled by law enforcement just because statistics indicate that the group is more likely to commit certain crimes? Opponents of racial profiling say no, arguing not only that racial profiling is unfair but also ineffective in tackling crime.
Although racial profiling garnered much support after 9-11, the case against racial profiling outlines how the practice routinely hasn't worked, proving to be a hindrance in legal investigations.
Defining Racial Profiling
Before delving into the argument against racial profiling, it's necessary to first identify just what the practice is. In a 2002 speech at Santa Clara University Law School, then California Chief Deputy Attorney General Peter Siggins defined racial profiling as a practice that "refers to government activity directed at a suspect or group of suspects because of their race, whether intentional or because of the disproportionate numbers of contacts based upon other pre-textual reasons." In other words, sometimes authorities decide to question or intercept a person based solely on race because they believe a particular group is more likely to commit any number of crimes. Other times, racial profiling may occur indirectly. Say certain goods are being smuggled into the United States.
Each smuggler law enforcement finds has ties to a certain country. Thus, being an immigrant from that country is likely to be included in the profile authorities craft of what to look for when trying to spot the smugglers. But is just being from that country enough to give authorities reason to suspect someone of smuggling? Racial profiling opponents argue that such a reason is discriminatory and too broad in scope.
The Origins of Racial Profiling
Criminologists credit Howard Teten, former FBI chief of research, with popularizing "profiling," according to Time magazine. In the 1950s, Teten profiled by attempting to pinpoint a criminal's personality traits through evidence left at crime scenes, including how the perpetrator committed the crime. By the early 1980s, Teten's techniques had trickled down to local police departments. However, many of these law enforcement agencies lacked sufficient training in psychology to profile successfully. Moreover, while Teten profiled mostly in homicide investigations, local police departments were using profiling in mundane crimes such as robberies, Time reports.
Enter the crack-cocaine epidemic of the 1980s. Then, the Illinois state police began targeting drug runners in the Chicago area. Most of the first couriers the state police apprehended were young, Latino males who failed to give satisfactory answers when asked where they were headed, Time reports. So, the state police developed a profile of the young, Hispanic, confused male as drug runner. Before long, the Drug Enforcement Agency developed a strategy similar to the Illinois state police's, leading to the seizure of 989,643 kilograms of illegal narcotics by 1999. While this feat was undeniably impressive, it doesn't reveal how many innocent Latino men were stopped, searched and apprehended by police during the "war on drugs."
Room for Improvement
Amnesty International argues that the use of racial profiling to stop drug couriers on highways proved ineffective. The human rights organization cites a 1999 survey by the Department of Justice to make its point. The survey found that, while officers disproportionately focused on drivers of color, they found drugs on 17% of whites searched but on just 8% of blacks. A similar survey in New Jersey found that while, once again, drivers of color were searched more, state troopers found drugs on 25% of whites searched compared to on 13% of blacks and on 5% of Latinos searched. Amnesty International also references a study of the U.S. Customs Service's practices by Lamberth Consulting to make the case against racial profiling. The study found that, when Customs agents stopped using racial profiling to identify drug smugglers and focused on suspects' behavior, they raised their rate of productive searches by more than 300%, Amnesty reports.
Black prisoners are given longer sentences than whites, study says
Black men in prison on average are given sentences nearly 20 percent longer than those served by white men for similar crimes, new sentencing data shows.
The data is contained in a report by the U.S. Sentencing Commission that was submitted to Congress last month and made public this week, the Wall Street Journal (sub.req.) reports.
According to the report, sentences for black males were 19.5 percent longer than those for similarly situated white males between December 2007 and September 2011, the most recent period covered in the report. The commission also found that black males were 25 percent less likely than whites to receive a sentence below the sentencing guidelines.
A separate analysis of the data that excluded sentences of probation showed the same pattern, although the racial disparity was less pronounced. Black men on average were given sentences 14.5 percent longer than whites.
The findings show that the racial divide in sentencing has widened since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2005 ruling in U.S. v. Booker, which struck down a 1984 law requiring judges to impose sentences within the sentencing guidelines. In the two years after the Booker ruling, sentences for blacks on average were 15.2 percent longer than those for similarly situated whites.
The commission’s report recommends that federal judges give the sentencing guidelines more weight and that federal appeals courts give more scrutiny to sentences that fall outside the guidelines.
Also, making it more difficult for minorities to vote.
New G.O.P. Bid to Limit Voting in Swing States
CINCINNATI — Pivotal swing states under Republican control are embracing significant new electoral restrictions on registering and voting that go beyond the voter identification requirements that have caused fierce partisan brawls.
The bills, laws and administrative rules — some of them tried before — shake up fundamental components of state election systems, including the days and times polls are open and the locations where people vote.
Republicans in Ohio and Wisconsin this winter pushed through measures limiting the time polls are open, in particular cutting into weekend voting favored by low-income voters and blacks, who sometimes caravan from churches to polls on the Sunday before election.
Democrats in North Carolina are scrambling to fight back against the nation’s most restrictive voting laws, passed by Republicans there last year. The measures, taken together, sharply reduce the number of early voting days and establish rules that make it more difficult for people to register to vote, cast provisional ballots or, in a few cases, vote absentee.
In all, nine states have passed measures making it harder to vote since the beginning of 2013. Most have to do with voter ID laws. Other states are considering mandating proof of citizenship, like a birth certificate or a passport, after a federal court judge recently upheld such laws passed in Arizona and Kansas. Because many poor people do not have either and because documents can take time and money to obtain, Democrats say the ruling makes it far more difficult for people to register.
Voting experts say the impact of the measures on voter turnout remains unclear. Many of the measures have yet to take effect, and a few will not start until 2016. But at a time when Democrats are on the defensive over the Affordable Care Act and are being significantly outspent by conservative donors like the Koch brothers, the changes pose another potential hurdle for Democratic candidates this year.
Republicans defend the measures, saying Democrats are overstating their impact for partisan reasons. The new rules, Republicans say, help prevent fraud, save money and bring greater uniformity to a patchwork election system.
“We think they’re stoking these things for political gain,” said Alex M. Triantafilou, the chairman of the Hamilton County Republican Party in Ohio. “We think there’s an effort here to rally the Democratic base in a year that they otherwise wouldn’t be rallying.”
Democrats and other critics of the laws say that in the face of shifting demographics, Republicans are trying to alter the rules and shape the electorate in their favor. Those most affected by the restrictions are minorities and the urban poor, who tend to vote Democratic.
“What we see here is a total disrespect and disregard for constitutional protections,” said the Rev. William Barber, president of the North Carolina N.A.A.C.P. and leader of the Moral Mondays movement, which opposes the changes.
The flurry of new measures is in large part a response to recent court rulings that open the door to more restrictive changes.
Last year, the Supreme Court struck down a central provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The decision allowed a number of mostly Southern states to alter their election laws without the prior approval once required from the Justice Department. A few weeks later, free of the mandate and emboldened by a Republican supermajority, North Carolina passed the country’s most sweeping restrictions on voting.
The law did away with same-day voter registration and a popular program to preregister high school students to vote. It cut early voting to 10 days from 17, mandated a strict photo identification requirement that excluded student and state worker IDs and ended straight-ticket party voting, all of them measures that are expected to hurt Democrats, election law analysts said. The Supreme Court decision also cleared the way for Texas to institute its strict photo identification requirements.
In February, the Ohio legislature moved to reduce early voting by one week, do away with registering and voting on the same day prior to Election Day, and place new restrictions on absentee ballot application mailings. And a little over a week ago, the Wisconsin Legislature sent a bill to Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican, to shorten early voting, including cutting it altogether on weekend days.
In so doing, Republicans in these states shifted their strategy away from concerns over fraud, which have proved largely unfounded, to a new rationale that suggests fairness: uniformity.
Republican lawmakers and election officials argue that to avoid voter confusion and litigation urban and rural counties should follow the same rules.
In Ohio, the hodgepodge of rules raised concerns in both parties. Some urban counties had large enough budgets to send out absentee ballot applications and some smaller rural ones did not, election board directors said. Early voting hours also varied.
“Every voter should have an equal opportunity to vote under the same set of rules,” said Ohio’s secretary of state, Jon A. Husted, a Republican.
In addition, Gov. John R. Kasich, a Republican, signed a measure that cut “Golden Week,” during which voters could register and vote on the same day, over concerns about potential fraud. He also signed a measure that shifts the responsibility of automatically mailing absentee ballot applications to the secretary of state, instead of counties. The law leaves it up to the Legislature to finance the process, which until now was paid for by counties.
Drug convictions overwhelmingly affect the black community unfairly.
Disparity in Drug arrests and convictions
Although approximately two thirds of crack cocaine users are white or Hispanic, a large percentage of people convicted of possession of crack cocaine in federal courts in 1994 were black. In 1994 84.5% of the defendants convicted of crack cocaine possession were black while 10.3% were white and 5.2% were Hispanic. Possession for powder cocaine was more racially mixed with 58% of the offenders being white, 26.7% black, and 15% Hispanic. Within the federal judicial system a person convicted of possession with intent to distribute powder cocaine carries a five-year sentence for quantities of 500 grams or more while a person convicted of possession with intent to distribute crack cocaine faces a five-year sentence for quantities of five grams or more. With the combination of severe and unbalanced drug possession laws along with the rates of conviction in terms of race, the judicial system has created a huge racial disparity.[12]
This is all you need to know about him
